Mitigating climate change impacts on India agriculture through improved Irrigation water Management

In this project, we propose to investigate the effects of climate change and variability on irrigation water security in India and to evaluate the effectiveness of better irrigation and water management strategies in mitigating any water shortage situation and so improve the productivity of the available water. To assess the impacts of climate change on the runoff and hence on groundwater recharge and inflows into rivers, canals and on-farm reservoir systems at the catchment scale, we will use the Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) hydrological model, appropriately calibrated and validated, and a range of GCMs projections and emissions scenarios.

To better understand the impacts on irrigation water requirements at the farm scale, we propose to use an existing physically-based root water uptake model that will be further calibrated and tested using data that will be collected at experimental farms in four diverse climatic zones spread over the four Indian states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarapradesh and Uttarakhand. For future conditions, the calibrated model will be coupled with the SWAT model.

Given the assessed irrigation water requirements for the future, the adequacy of existing on-farm irrigation infrastructures- direct river abstractions, reservoirs and tube wells- will be assessed in terms of reliability, vulnerability, resilience and sustainability. We propose to develop better operational practices for the infrastructures- e.g. enhanced rule curves for reservoirs, conjunctive use of reservoirs, rivers, groundwater etc- that will temper the effect of water shortages or desynchronise water availability from rainfall on crop production. The project will involve collaboration between internationally-leading scientists at 3 Indian institutions (IIT-Roorkee; NIT-Kurukshetra; NIT, Hamirpur) and 2 UK Universities: Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (H-WU), Cranfield University (CU). It will build on an existing and thriving collaboration between the H-WU team and the team at the IIT-Roorkee. We will work with stakeholders in India (farmers, regional and regional to national policymakers) and leading UK irrigation practitioners. The project will last for 48 months and comprise four work packages as follows:

WP 1- Impacts and uncertainty, of climate change on water resources availability for agriculture in India: This WP aims to understand climate change impacts on water availability and to identify thresholds in catchment/aquifer-scale runoff, groundwater recharge and responses (led by CU).
WP 2- Impacts of shifting temporal and spatial rainfall patterns on crop-soil moisture regimes and potential irrigation demand, and associated field experimentation: The effects of the changing temperature and rainfall patterns on farm-scale soil moisture and hence future irrigation water requirements with be assessed with IIT-R physically-based root water uptake model, which will be further calibrated and validated against observed crop yields and soil moisture data from dedicated field experiments at 4 sites across 4 Indian states (Led by IIT-R).
WP 3- Understanding the potential of robust irrigation water management practices and systems to reduce the impacts of future water scarcity: The effectiveness of on-farm infrastructures will be assessed for their reliability, vulnerability resilience and sustainability to deliver irrigation water needs for existing and climate-change conditions. Better operational practices- irrigation water scheduling; rule and operating policies for on-farm reservoirs; conjunctive use and artificial recharge- that are robust to the uncertainties in the climate change predictions will be developed and evaluated (Led by H-WU)
WP 4- Stakeholder engagement and dissemination: A broad range of contextually-appropriate engagement and dissemination activities will be co-ordinated by IIT-Roorkee throughout the project duration, to maximise stakeholder buy-in (Joint UK/Indian led).

In this project, our research will inform how food security can be sustained or enhanced when faced with dwindling and/or less reliable water availability resulting from the changing water cycle. At the strategic level, a wide range of organisations with responsibility for policy and practice in relation to water and natural resources, rural development and food security will benefit. These include the National and State Ministries of Agriculture, Rural Development, Earth Sciences, Environment and Forest (national). All this will ensure that our activities complement and contribute to the overarching Impact and Knowledge Exchange plan of the Changing Water Cycle.
The ultimate beneficiaries are small scale, rural Indian farmers who depend on rainfed and irrigated agriculture for their livelihoods, for whom the research will contribute towards improved practices of water management and sustainable irrigation production that are more resilient to climate variability and change.
Users involved in research to improve our understanding of how climate change interacts with the global to regional water cycle, and the consequent impacts affecting humankind and ecosystems will also benefit from the research outcomes. Given that water resource systems are fundamental to the delivery and maintenance of many ecosystem goods and services including Provisioning (food and freshwater), Regulating (water purification), Cultural (aesthetic, recreational) services upon which society and the environment depend, the proposal will have benefit to a wide range of researchers and practitioners involved in understanding many diverse areas of ecosystem goods and services, e.g. groundwater and surface water modelling, rural development, aquatic ecology, surface water quality etc.
A number of activities will be staged in order to achieve these impacts, including:
(1)Network development- participating research institutions in India will profit from enhanced technical capacities through close working relations with their UK counterparts while the UK researchers benefit through new knowledge gained from interactions with their Indian counterparts;
(2)Stakeholder engagement through creation of a multi-stakeholder platform that will link the research team and key end users in India and act as a focal point for a range of outreach and networking activities. The purpose of this is to allow user groups to articulate their needs and priorities, contribute to the research design and implementation;
(3)Workshops- we will carry out 2 workshops with farmer organizations, central and state government irrigation agencies and agricultural extension advisers at the start and end of the project. These will provide valuable opportunities for two-way learning, allowing improved understanding of climate change impact and the need to improve irrigation practices and to ensure that the research produces contextually-relevant results to maximise impact;
(4)Site visits- We propose a 5 day UK study visit for representatives of the extension services in the State Department of Agriculture in our 4 states and research collaborators, featuring a workshop and site visits to commercial irrigated agriculture facilities mainly in Eastern England. The workshop will be designed and led by RTCS Ltd, a research, training and consultancy services outfit specialising in all aspects of irrigation advice and training;
(5)Publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentation at learned conferences; and (6)website- dedicated websites will be developed on each of Heriot-Watt, Cranfied and IIT-R central websites on which outputs from the project will be mounted. This will be enhanced by seeking and obtaining approval for weblinks, e.g. CGIAR, ICARDA, UNESCO, IIED and IAHS, to the project's webpages to increase potential site visitors. Summary outputs will be disseminated to the UNESCO-IHP GRAPHIC, IAH Commission on Groundwater & Climate Change, IAHS Commission on water resources.